If you think this is old news, and that the issue
has been beat to death, think again. I conducted a training class for
an airline repair station -- just like Sabretech (who were the ones who send
the Oxygen generators out on Valujet), and I had a class of 20 students in
there and when I asked how many people had heard about the Valuject disaster
and could tell me what happened, there were almost a THIRD of the students
who didn't remember what it was about.

This SAME company actually sent out oxygen generator
on a passenger flight a full year after the Valujet incident.

Now, over six years later I ask my students how
many of them know about th the Valujet disaster, and while nearly all of the
older students know, maybe half of the younger (under 30) students had never
heard of it.

I hate to think what it's actually going to take
to get people to take the issue of hazardous materials seriously.

The Federal Aviation Administration has released the taped conversations
between the Miami International Airport control tower, ValuJet First Officer
Richard Hazen and other planes during the moments before the crash May 11
that killed 110 people.

ValuJet planes are referred to as "critter," a reference to the
smiling airplane used as a company logo.

Here are some of the radio transmissions, without some of the comments made
by other planes traveling in the area at the same time:

Flight 592: Afternoon departure. Critter 592 is out of 500 going to 5,000.

MD: Critter 592, you can turn left heading one-zero-zero and join runway
one-two localizer at Miami.

MD: Critter 592 descend and maintain 3,000.

MD: Critter 592, Opa Locka Airport's about 12 o'clock at 15 miles.

American Eagle Flight 809: OK, 35-17. How did critter make out?

Note of thanks to Tony Tepedino, FAA in Honolulu,
Hawaii. When Tony comes in and speaks to our classes about hazmat safety,
he always reads a short exceprt from the transcript of the Valujet crash;
it is such an effective tool, it gave me the idea to put this up on the web
in the hopes that it will strike a nerve in people, they way it did in me
when I heard him read those words from the crew: "fire, fire, fire fire...
we're on fire".

110 people impacted the Everglades at 450 miles
an hour shortly after that.